Abstract [en]

Urban Ethnic festivals have positive impacts on the image of cities and countries (McClinchey, 2008) and create a sense of belonging among immigrant groups (Chacko, 2013). Every year, a Tuesday in the middle of March and after 17:00, Iranian Fire Festival is held outdoors in the center of Stockholm and Göteborg. It is financed and organized by Riksteatern (The Swedish National Theatre). In Stockholm it is held in the King’s Garden park, 500 meters from the parliament, and it is used to be opened either by some Swedish ministers or by the Prime minister. This is not a big event in international comparison; it can be classified as local event and it is held when it is still very cold in Sweden. The event lasts in 4-5 hours but draws thousands of audiences (mostly from the same city region) to these two simultaneous arrangements. The audiences as well as the artists are mostly of Middle Eastern background (mostly Iranians, Kurds, Afghans) and there has been no report on ethnic Swedes among them over the years. This event, however, gets a huge attention from the Swedish media but also from some international media (Like Voice of America, Persian section) and Iranian diaspora media worldwide. In accordance with Getz et al (2007), many stakeholders are involved in this event; the Swedish governments, the event organization, municipality offices, many ethnic associations in Sweden, media, invited artists from Sweden and other countries, participants, sellers and volunteers.

The aim of this research is to get insight into this event, incentives behind it and the expected outcome of it from different stakeholders. Especially it is important to find out what interest different Swedish governments have since they support the event financially regardless of ideological belonging while the event’s own preconditions are not the best one.